CHAPTER XXXI.THE SOUTHERN CAMPAIGN, 1781, OUTLINED.—COWPENS.—GUILFORD COURT-HOUSE.—EUTAW SPRINGS.
Before developing Washington’s plan for the capture of Benedict Arnold, it is advisable to glance at the military condition of the Southern Department in which Arnold was then serving in command of British troops. Lafayette had been intrusted with execution of the plan. He knew perfectly well that Arnold would not venture far from his fortified position at Portsmouth, and thus incur risk of capture and an inevitable death upon the gibbet.
The assignment of General Greene to the command of that department was designed by Washington, for the purpose of initiating a vigorous campaign against all posts occupied by British garrisons, and gradually to clear that country of the presence of British troops. He had great confidence in such men as Marion, Sumter, Hampton, and other partisan leaders, who were perpetually on the alert, by night and by day, for opportunities to repress royalist risings, and harass the enemy at every possible point of contact. It was very natural, then, to overestimate the British successes at Savannah and Charleston, and even to assume that the British army would be uniformly equal to active campaign service, and would not find it difficult to maintain supplies in the field. In view of the condition of roads, water-courses, swamps, and the limited agricultural improvements ofthose times, it is greatly to the credit of the British officers that so much was accomplished by them, in the face of the partisan operations above noticed.
Washington appreciated this condition fully; urged the Southern governors to renewed activity, and furnished General Greene with instructions respecting what he regarded as the final campaign of the war. Thefirstelement of success which he enjoined as a duty was “to avoid battle with fresh British troops, just out of garrison, and therefore in complete readiness for action.” Thesecondinjunction was, “so far as possible, to give a partisan or skirmish character to engagements where inferior numbers could keep their adversaries under constant and sleepless apprehension of attack.” Thethirdwas, “to utilize and control streams, swamps, and woods, where the bayonet and artillery could not be successfully employed by British troops.” Thefourthprinciple of action was characteristic of Washington’s early experience, and was exemplified throughout the war—“never to halt, over night, without making artificial protection against surprise; and to surprise the enemy so far as practicable, whenever all conditions seem to render such surprise impossible.” Cæsar’s habitual intrenchments, upon a halt, were types of Washington’s methods; and the Crimean War made more impressive than ever the value of slight, temporary cover for troops in the field. Thecamp-kettle, thepowderandlead, thepickand thespade, were Washington’s indispensable tools.
It was therefore with great confidence in the result that he intrusted this Southern campaign to the charge of Nathaniel Greene; and for the same reasons he sent him his best engineer, and his best corps of rifles and horse. General Greene, immediately upon taking command, removed all commissary supplies from the coast, to avoid liability of their seizure, and to maintain his food-supply.He ordered Quartermaster-General Carrington to collect all magazines upon the Roanoke, for ready access whenever he might need ammunition or commissary supplies. He wrote to Baron Steuben, to “hasten forward his recruits”; to the Governors of Virginia and North Carolina, to “fill up their quotas of regulars and call in all the militiathat they could arm”; to Shelby, Campbell, and other participants in the Battle of King’s Mountain, fought on the eighth of October, 1780, “to come forward and assist in the overthrow of Cornwallis, and defeat his second attempt to invade North Carolina.” It is certain from his letters to Washington, that he expected to realize success. The battle of Cowpens immediately followed.
While awaiting response to his demands for troops, both militia and regulars, Greene promptly detached Morgan, with Colonels Washington and Howard, to learn the movements of Cornwallis and Tarleton, and fritter away their strength by worrying tactics. Morgan came so near Tarleton as to know that he could have a fight, if he wanted a fight. This he resolved to have. Few military events on record show superior tact, daring, and success. He placed his command in the sharp bend of Broad River, then swollen by rains, and so deep and swift that neither boat, horse nor man could cross it; where, as he afterwards reported, “his men had to fight, or drown.” All that he asked of his advanced militia was, that they would give two volleys and scamper from his front, and re-form in his rear. He secreted Washington’s dragoons out of view, for their opportunity. Tarleton dashed madly after the scattering militia, and before he could rally his impetuous charge of horse and foot, was taken in the rear, utterly routed, and barely saved himself after a sabre-cut from Colonel Washington; leaving on the field, or as prisoners, seven hundred and eighty of his command, two cannon, fifty-five wagons, one hundredhorses, and eight hundred muskets. Cornwallis was but twenty-five miles distant; but the exchange of sharp words afterwards, between himself and Tarleton, did not lessen the value and prestige of this timely American victory. Congress and various States united in recognition of Morgan’s gallant conduct. Broken down by rheumatism, he was compelled to leave active service. From Quebec, in 1775, to Cowpens, in 1780, he had been “weighed” in many battle-scales, and never “found wanting.”
On the twenty-fifth of January, while in camp on Hicks’ Creek, a fork of the Great Republic, Greene received the message of Morgan that he “had many prisoners in charge, but was pressed by Cornwallis.” It was most tantalizing, at such an hour, not to be able to improve this victory. The Southern army, including Morgan’s force, numbered, all told, including four hundred militia, only twenty-one hundred and three men, of whom the artillerists were but forty-seven, and the cavalry only one hundred and twenty. Greene wrote to Sumter, on the fifteenth of January, two days before the Battle of Cowpens: “More than half our numbers are in a manner naked, so much that we cannot put them on the least duty. Indeed, there is a great number that have not a rag of clothing on them, except a little piece of blanket, in the Indian form, about their waists.” But Greene put this force in the best possible order; and on the twenty-eighth, accompanied by a single guide, one aide-de-camp, and a sergeant’s party of twenty troopers, he started to join Morgan. On the night of the thirtieth, after a ride of one hundred and twenty-five miles, he was with him.
The crisis was immediate. Greene wrote to Varnum, then in Congress; to Gist, Smallwood, Rutledge, Washington, and others, appealing for five thousand infantry and from six to eight hundred horse. It seemed as ifthis very victory would only precipitate disaster. Washington thus replied: “I wish I had it in my power to congratulate you on the brilliant and important victory of General Morgan without the alloy which the distresses of the department you command, and apprehensions of posterior events, intermix.... I lament that you find it so difficult to avoid a general action; for our misfortunes can only be completed by the dispersion of your little army, which will be the most probable consequence of such an event.” This letter reflects the wise policy of Washington throughout the war; ever to reserve in hand a sufficient force to control the time and place for battle; while incessantly weakening that of his adversary and compelling him, finally, to flight “against odds.”
As the mind reverts to the contentions for high command which characterized the early years of the war; and as one officer after another disappears from the battle record, it would seem as if the officer who sat by the side of Morgan on the banks of the Catawba, on the thirtieth of January, 1781, must have felt as if a new generation had taken the place of the old comrades of 1776, and that he was simply waiting to pass away also.
But the hazard of delay was omnipotent to force instant action. Colonel Lee was ordered to hasten and join Greene. The report of the landing of British forces at Wilmington, just in the rear of the small army he had left at Hicks’ Creek, was a new source of anxious concern. The time of service of the Virginia militia was about to expire, and according to precedent, they would be prompt in their departure. With quick sagacity, Greene placed General Stephens in command, anticipating the exact term of their expiring enlistment, and sent them home, via Hillsborough, in charge of the prisoners of Tarleton’s command. He thus relieved Morgan of this encumbrance, and saved the detail of efficient troops for that escort duty.
At this period, Cornwallis had abandoned Charleston as his base of supply, and was confident of a successful invasion of North Carolina. He certainly knew that Phillips, Arnold, and Simcoe could spare no troops from Virginia; and through the disaster which befell Tarleton, one of the best soldiers of that period, at Cowpens, he began to appreciate Clinton’s disappointing experiences about New York. He unburdened his thoughts to Clinton, in this melancholy vein: “Our hopes of success were principally founded upon positive assurances, given by apparently credible deputies and emissaries, that, upon the approach of a British army in North Carolina, a great body of the inhabitants were ready to join it, and coöperate with it in restoring his Majesty’s Government. All inducements in my power were made use of without material effects.”
On the tenth of February, Greene had a force of only two thousand and thirty-six men; of which, but fourteen hundred and six were regular troops. A light corps of seven hundred men was organized under Colonels Williams, Carrington, Howard, Washington, and Lee, to operate in separate detachments so far as practicable, and thus keep the army of Cornwallis constantly under exposure to attack, and compelled to make many exhaustive marches. Kosciusko planned light earthworks, to cover fords as the army crossed and recrossed the same; and Greene was thus employing wise strategic methods for future action, when of his own choice he might confront Cornwallis in battle.
Many vicissitudes of thrilling interest attended these desultory operations; and when sudden floods, and as sudden abatement of swollen streams, had been successfully utilized by the patriotic leaders, just at the right moment, it is not strange that the American people, aswell as Washington, saw in these deliverances the hand of favoring Providence.
At this juncture, Greene realized also, as well as did Cornwallis, that he could not expect any substantial aid from Virginia. He could hardly keep his immediate force in hand, while wear, waste, hunger and sickness began to impair their fighting energy as well as physical capacity. He determined to seek the first reasonable opportunity to join battle with Cornwallis; and the Battle of Guilford Court-House, on the fifteenth of March, realized Washington’s full anticipations of such protracted inaction.
The light troops of both armies had skirmished daily. Cornwallis issued a proclamation giving a limit within which the people must return to their allegiance to the Crown. On the sixth of March a skirmish occurred at Wetzell’s Mills, which brought nearly the entire army of Cornwallis into action. On the eighth, Colonel Carrington and Frederick Cornwallis, acting as commissioners for the two opposing armies, agreed upon terms for an exchange of prisoners. Cornwallis had been in the habit of paroling militia, wherever found, and carrying them on his list, as if captured in battle. In the adjustment made, Greene obtained a few officers who would have been otherwise idle during the campaign; but the arrangement had no other immediate value.
The position of the two armies is worthy of notice, because of its relations to succeeding events in Virginia. For several weeks Cornwallis had made special endeavor to control all upper fords. On the twenty-seventh of February he crossed the river Haw and fixed his camp on the Alamance, one of its tributaries. Greene adopted a line nearly parallel with that of his adversary, and advanced to the heights between Reedy Fork and Troublesome Creek, having his divided headquarters near theSpeedwell Iron Works and Boyd’s Mills, on two streams. Greene had gained the choice of position, entirely reversing the old relations of the armies. There were no British troops in his rear, or on his eastern flank, and none to endanger his communications with Virginia. He could give battle; retire as he advanced, or move into Virginia, by the same upper fords which Cornwallis had once so carefully occupied. At this time, the army of Cornwallis was also in great need of clothing, medicines, and all other essential supplies. The strain of so many unequal marches and skirmishes, through woods, thickets, and swamps, and across innumerable small streams, with no recompense in victories won, was very severe. He therefore pitched his camp between the Haw and Deep rivers, where the roads from Salisbury, Guilford and Hillsborough unite, and thus controlled the road to Wilmington, his only proximate base of supply.
Troops had already commenced reporting to General Greene, and he decided to offer battle. The command consisted of only fourteen hundred and ninety regular infantry, one hundred and sixty-one cavalry, and twenty-seven hundred and fifty-four militia. The army of Cornwallis, which on the first of January numbered three thousand two hundred and twenty-four men, had fallen off, by March 1st, nearly one-third; and there was reason for Greene’s hope that, in case his militia held firmly to positions assigned them, victory might be realized. He felt the enemy with Lee’s and Campbell’s cavalry; disposed his troops in admirable form; and failed at last, only through the weakness of his raw troops. For the purposes of this narrative, only the result need be stated. The American army retired to the iron-works on Troublesome Creek, a distance of twelve miles, to rally forces and prepare for future action. “It is certain,” says Colonel Lee, “that if Greene had known the condition of the Britishforces, he need not have retreated, and the American victory would have been complete.” Tarleton, who was wounded in the action, after stating that “the British army lost one-third of its number in killed and wounded, during the two hours of battle,” said that “this victory was the pledge of ultimate defeat.”
Greene, writing to Washington, said: “The enemy gained his cause, but is ruined by the success of it.” Fox, in the British House of Commons, said: “Another such victory would ruin the British army.” Pitt called it “the precursor of ruin to British supremacy at the South.” The casualties of the American army were, nominally, including missing, thirteen hundred and eleven; but so many of the missing immediately rallied, that the Virginia Brigade, after two days, reported as present for duty, seven hundred and fifty-two; and the Maryland Brigade mustered five hundred and fifty, showing a loss in action of only one hundred and eighty-eight men, instead of two hundred and sixty-one, reported on the seventeenth. Of one militia brigade, five hundred and fifty-two were missing. The British casualties were five hundred and forty-four, and of the general officers, only Cornwallis and Leslie escaped without wounds.
Cornwallis, after providing for the wounded as well as possible, and leaving under a flag of truce those who could not march, immediately crossed the deep river as if moving to Salisbury; then recrossed it, lower down, and entered Wilmington on the seventh of April, with only fourteen hundred and forty-five men. He wrote to Lord Rawdon, that “Greene would probably invade South Carolina”; but the messenger failed to get through to Charleston. Greene was delayed after the battle, to send back to his supply-train for ammunition, lead and bullet-moulds; but he followed so closely after, that he reached Ramsour’s Mills the twenty-eighth, the very day on whichCornwallis had bridged the river and pushed on to Wilmington.
The effect of this withdrawal of Cornwallis was of great value to the American cause, and cleared away obstructions to a broader range of operations for the army of the North. Subsequently, on the twenty-fifth of April Greene met Rawdon, at Hobkirk Hill, in an action sometimes called the Second Battle of Camden, as it was fought near that town, in which the American casualties were two hundred and seventy-one, and the British casualties were two hundred and fifty-eight. Greene, after the action, withdrew to Rugeley’s Mills, and Rawdon to Camden. Stedman says: “The victory at Hobkirk Hill, like that at Guilford Court-House, produced no consequences beneficial to the British army.” On the seventeenth of the subsequent September, Greene fought with Stewart, Rawdon’s successor, the Battle of Eutaw Springs, the final battle at the South. In this battle the American casualties were four hundred and eight, and the British casualties were six hundred and ninety-three. In dismissing these operations in the Southern Department, a single extract from Tarleton’s history of the war is of interest: “The troops engaged during the greater part of the time were totally destitute of bread, and the country afforded no vegetable as a substitute. Salt at length failed, and their only resources were water and the wild cattle which they found in the woods. In the last expedition, fifty men perished through mere fatigue.... We must not, however, confine the praise entirely to the British troops. The same justice requires that the Americans should not be deprived of their share of this fatal glory.... On the whole, the campaign terminated in their favor, General Greene having recovered the far greater part of Georgia, and the two Carolinas.”
This same Nathaniel Greene led the Kentish Guards toBoston on the morning after the Battle of Lexington, in 1775, and his early announcement of the principles upon which the war should be conducted to ensure final success, had been verified. He had vindicated the confidence of Washington in every line of duty, and in his Southern campaign cleared the way for the crowning triumph of the American Commander-in-Chief, at Yorktown.